by this time next year, islay will have its ninth single malt distillery. currently under construction at ardnahoe on the road to bunnahabhain, in addition to the distillery at craighouse on jura, attendees at next year's islay whisky festival (fèis ìle) will have an extra tour in which to participate. obviously enough, while the buildings are being built, there's not much to see in the way of whisky production, so ardnahoe have taken premises in islay house square at bridgend in which they've opened a shop cum visitor centre for the time being.
with yesterday being the unnofficial opening of this year's festival, ardnahoe invited the great and the good to a modest celebration in the square. it appears that i fit into the latter category, having been asked along for a dram. naturally enough, as a teetotaller of long-standing, i refrained from that on offer. as part of the launch, hunter laing, owners of ardnahoe, unveiled what they're referring to as the kinship range, consisting of six bottlings of luxury whiskies from different islay distilleries. should you fancy adding the half-dozen to your whisky cabinet, be prepared to receive very little change from £5,000.
as i have described on previous occasions, friday afternoons are often my time to play hookie from the office and nip out on the bike for a bout of froth supping. on this particular occasion, i stopped off at islay house square to avoid my dram. though debbie's is more than used to incoming cyclists in sportwool and lycra, under the circumstances, i thought it more prudent to dress in a less rudimentary fashion, wearing a pair of rapha fixie shorts over my core range bibshorts, topped off with a classic jersey. and as the icing on the cake, so to speak, i wore a pair of rapha's new classic crochet mitts.
the white ones.
crocheted fabrics first appeared in europe during the 19th century and differ from knitting, apart from the tools used, in that each stitch is completed before moving onto the next. the dutch apparently published instructions on how to crochet in the early 1800s. not unnaturally, given the human need to footer with pretty much anything, there are several different crochet stitches from which to choose such as double, shepherd, french or slip-stitch. common consent would agree that britain produced the highest degree of perfection in the art of crochet, but that hasn't stopped both france and germany claiming to have invented the fabric that now features prominently on the back of rapha's luxury fingerless mittens.
according to the latter's website, the leather palms of these classic mitts feature targeted padding; in other words, minimal to say the least. the style is pretty much what tom simpson would have worn, though i'd be surprised if his reached the level of luxurious softness provided by the current state of the art. i have previously owned crochet-backed mitts on which the latter has been a tad rudimentary, verging on coarse; there is none of that here.
but aside from their sartorial superbity, in the words of jiminy cricket, "there's more". the rapha emblazoned velcro fastening on the back creates an open oval, ready and waiting to create the necessarily identifiable tan-line that we all know and flaunt. it just doesn't get any better than this.
as i wended my merry way from bowmore to islay house square and subsequently south west to debbie's, that minimal padding accomplished far more than you'd ever believe possible. whether in the drops or on the hoods, you'd scarcely notice their existence, apart, of course, from conferring simpson status upon the wearer. sadly, no-one at the ardnahoe launch commented upon their soft, white tommyness, but that just shows how much they know.
rapha's classic track mitts are available in sizes ranging from xs to xl in black, blue or white at a cost of £60.
friday 26 may 2017
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